


My Calm Masks A Storm

by starprise_entership



Series: The Doctor and The Counsellor are Best Friends [4]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, contains references to episode ‘statistical probabilities’, ft. quark somewhere near the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 04:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13826313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starprise_entership/pseuds/starprise_entership
Summary: Dealing with the aftermath of a war is no easy feat for anyone, but more so for someone who had proposed an idea to minimize the number of lives lost.





	My Calm Masks A Storm

The hologram sun rests tangent to the horizon, its last golden rays stretching out across the water like the paths of arrows. The water shimmers with latent excitement, reaching out as the tide comes in and the waves move in their daily rhythm.

Julian sits at the edge where the sea meets the land. The waves, coming in and out, slosh and lap over his legs, perpendicular to the shore. He looks out over the ocean, contemplative almost.

“You’re soaking wet.” He doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. It’s taken a while, but he’s finally gotten used to the way her voice sounds now.

“Can a man just have his own peace and quiet?” Julian throws out, mildly annoyed. “I could call security and report that you’re breaking into my holosuite program.”

Ezri takes a shrugged breath. “Kira sent me. You’ve been here for hours.”

Julian dips the long sleeves of his Starfleet undershirt into the waves as they slosh past again. “And Quark’s getting annoyed. Is that it? Is that what Kira cares about?” He huffs, setting his hands down behind him into the soft, malleable sand. “Well, tell him I’m sorry for holding back his customers.”

The corner of Ezri’s mouth pulls up in a disappointed side-smile. “Okay, maybe I was lying about that. But really, I’m just concerned.”

“There’s no need to worry.” Julian assures, turning away again with a sniff.

“You virtually haven’t left the holosuites since the war ended.” Ezri reminds him. “It’s been three days.”

“I’ll pay Quark, I promise.” Julian says again, half-joking. “But really, you can leave.”

“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.” Ezri insists, trudging across the sand. Removing her socks and shoes, she sits down in front of him in the wet, sea-soaked sand.

“I guess I’m going to have to make it easier for the both of us.” sighs Julian. He takes a handful of sand and throws it further into the ocean. “Where do you want to start?”

Ezri nods. “Okay. Something easy first.” She squints her eyes against the setting sun. “Why this program? The last time I was in here with you was two days ago. And you insisted that we do your Alamo program.”

Julian looks around and shrugs. “It’s a memory of my childhood. The happiest memory of my childhood, I’d say.” He hesitantly recalls. “I was five. And my parents brought me to the beach. I loved sitting in the shallows where the waves would wash over me. And my parents – they were terrified! Terrified that I’d drown in the rising tide. So they pulled me out.”

“And the British seaside, being as it is, is no tropical paradise. I got a bad cold right after that.” He adds, as an afterthought.

“Revisiting good memories.” Ezri restates. “Well, but why did you have to spend all day sitting here?”

Julian shifts, folding up his legs and hugging them at his chest. “It was hard to go out,” he begins, his voice much softer than usual. “I know it’s perfectly normal to miss them, Miles, Odo, Sisko, Garak, but the war just happens to be the thing I can’t get out of my head. I still feel the controls of the Defiant under my fingers. And the way my fingers curl like there’s a phaser sitting in my hand, ready to fire. And I keep thinking that I’ll have to find out who died this week when Friday rolls around.”

“Tens of millions - no, hundreds of millions died.” Julian’s voice goes shaky and he buries his face in his knees. “And it could’ve been avoided. I could’ve helped to avoid it all. If I had only pushed our idea a little bit further.”

“Surrender was the easy choice, at that instant. Living with the consequences of that would’ve been a lot harder.” Ezri brings up. “So we continued to fight and won the war.”

“And I’m not sure that’s any better.” Julian laments. “Cardassia is barely intact after the bombing, Earth’s been greatly weakened, and the planets which had life completely wiped from the surface when they fell to the Dominion. All of that could’ve been avoided if I had pushed for the proposal a bit harder. But is that just how it is, in the grand scheme of things? That there wasn’t a path that really wasn’t any better than the others?”

“That’s just war, Julian.” Ezri says, reaching forward to put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s never fair.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” Julian takes a breath and looks up again. His cheeks are moist, but Ezri can’t tell if those are tears or seawater from the incoming waves that break gently against them as they sit in the path of the ebb and flow.

Ezri swallows a shaky breath. “If you need to cry it out, it’s best that you do. I mean, sometimes that’s what I do. And it’s good advice. It’s better than holding in all those negative emotions.” She approaches him, outstretching her arms. “I can hold you. Or I can leave, if that’s what you want.”

He accepts the former, and Ezri stays with him through the wave of emotion. She’s amazed at the amount of bottled-up grief and anguish within him as she holds his shaking body, breathing with him as she rubs circles consolingly into his upper back. And at last everything is still, and the hologram moon hangs brightly in the night sky. They leave a brief while later, not together. As Julian rushes back to his quarters to get changed, Ezri slips by the bar and drops a few slips of latinum into Quark’s hand. The bar is mostly empty at this hour of the day - most patrons have either left, or are enjoying a pint alone, in a contemplative state.

“You look after him, Ezri,” Quark says, sighing. “You really do need each other.”

“It’s the war, Quark,” Ezri returns. “It’s just not fair.”

 

 


End file.
